Cabling works at full steam on first large-scale US offshore wind farm

Two 220 kV high-voltage alternate current (HVAC) three-pole submarine cables have been installed for Vineyard Wind 1, America’s first large-scale offshore wind project.

Prysmian Group, the supplier of the submarine cables, said that the operations proceed on time with the schedule and that their cable-laying vessel Ulisse is ready to perform submarine cable joints.

Prysmian’s Cable Enterprise began installing the offshore part of the project’s link to the grid on land after a pre-lay grapnel run in October 2022.

In November, the vessel installed the two offshore sections of about 12 kilometres each, with Ulisse installing the first nearshore section (27 kilometres).

The cable laying operations of the mid-section cable for the Vineyard Wind 1 project kicked off in April this year and will continue through July, weather depending.

The 800 MW wind project, located 24 kilometres off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, will feature 62 GE Haliade-X 13 MW wind turbines.

Vineyard Wind 1 is expected to generate electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, create 3,600 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) job years, save customers USD 1.4 billion over the first 20 years of operation, and is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million metric tons per year, the equivalent of taking 325,000 cars off the road annually.

The project is being built by Vineyard Wind, a joint venture of Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of Iberdrola, and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).